Evasion is awesome - best FPS on the Rift?

Admitted I did think that $40 was a bit much, especially because this game didn't look "Lone Echo"-good in the trailer - but 2D trailers just can't capture the VR magic.

This game is very polished and is easily worth $40 (possibly even $60) - if you like the genre. You've got wide open areas in this game, and it's much like Doom, but slower (at least with the Warden character) - possibly more tactical, but not that much. You have a shield in one hand and a weapon in the other, and you do use the shield constantly - well I did playing the Warden (much like a moving Tiger Tank ) You can choose between different hero classes when you start the game (Surgeon, Warden, Engineer and Striker - each with different weapons and abilities) - read more here:

Touch controls are great - there's free locomotion and smooth turning. And you've got real arms like in Lone Echo and Marvel Powers United - Real arms are definitely another star for the rating You choose your height when you start the game - and you choose if you want to shoot using your left or right hand. You can use one hand to shoot while carrying a shield in the other hand - furthermore you can retract energy (batteries) from defeated enemies, quite awesome - but do remember to go through the tutorial to learn the controls. Crouch can be set to a button or you can crouch in the real world ;-) In this game the devs have more or less thought of everything when it comes to controls.

Music and sound effects are great - and I liked the voice acting too. In some perspective this game resembles Seeking Dawn, but it's much more polished and simple compared to Seeking Dawn. And Evasion is (much) less hardware demanding.

Graphics are nice, not sure it's AAA, and this game is also available on the PS4. The PC version has better textures than the PS4, and there're many video settings you can change (post processing, shadows, antialiasing etc) but polygon levels seem similar to the PS4 version. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because it means that this game is highly optimized and doesn't require much cpu power. And you can shoot the environment - how cool is that - check the trailer - notice how you can destroy parts of your surroundings:

Old trailer - but shows maybe better than the launch trailer how you can destroy your surroundings (awesome physics may be one thing making this game really stand out):

Using a GTX 1080 I had to use super sampling 1.5 or lower to get solid 90 fps - and antialiasing set to low while all other settings were maxed out. So performance is quite similar to Lone Echo. Using super sampling 2.0 especially distant textures looked more crisp adding more depth, but then I got 45 fps ASW, occasionally 90 fps - still using low antialiasing and all other settings maxed.

Antialiasing is quite demanding, but using high levels of super sampling antialiasing becomes less important - still using super sampling 2.0 it's possible to see benefits of antialiasing set to High. To get solid 90 fps using super sampling 2.0 you'll probably need a 2080 Ti. I didn't notice much fps gain reducing shadows or post processing. The game looks nice using super sampling 1.5, textures aren't super-sharp like Ethan Carter or Transference, but they're still quite good. ASW works great, and yes 90 fps no-asw is awesome, but 45 fps asw works really well, so to me 90 fps or 45 asw is no big deal.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

MINIMUM:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system

OS: Windows 10

Processor: Intel i5-4590

Memory: 8 GB RAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

DirectX: Version 11

Network: Broadband Internet connection

Storage: 10 GB available space

RECOMMENDED:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system

OS: Windows 10

Processor: Intel i7-4770

Memory: 16 GB RAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti

DirectX: Version 11

Network: Broadband Internet connection

Storage: 10 GB available space

Room scale and standing position are recommended, I tested the game using 3 sensors.

All in all this seems like a fun shooter - it's not gory like Doom, so young teenagers can play too. I didn’t test multiplayer and co-op. For now I'd rate the game 4.5/5 - ok, that's 5/5 in the Store

BTW, I did use Oculus Tray Tool (OTT) to control super sampling (SS). It seems the devs simply got everything right in this game, thus OTT overrides everything. When setting a global OTT SS value, this value will lock everything in-game (you can set resolution in-game from low to epic, but it had no effect when using the OTT to control SS).

Actually I changed tons of settings really giving the game a hard time, but it never crashed and was constantly highly responsive - just like Lone Echo At least on my rig Evasion seems to be greatly polished.

Compared to one Steam user complaining about low performance using a 1080 Ti I couldn't replicate such problems - I've played the game for about 2 hours and have not yet completed the game, so of course that's a limitation to my previous post (but I think the 1080 Ti user experienced these problems immediately). For now the levels don't feel repetitive, although you of course shoot many similar enemies - then again, you tend to do that within this genre

But Oculus has already prepared the game for Black Friday, so in the Oculus Store you'll probably be able to get the game for the same or lower price tomorrow - maybe

BTW, some of the bosses are truly awesome - and got me all over my play space. Once I ended up near a radiator in the real world trying to dodge one boss - that was tough and I really felt the heat of the battle 360 degrees tracking is working great in this game,,,

Suddenly I just thought of the perfect music for the situation I just described

Evasion is really awesome - I've started playing as the Surgeon, feels much better than the Warden, the Surgeon hits more precisely (like a precision cut )

I'm considering trying Striker this evening - he looks kinda cool too (you have 3 lives to complete a level - each time you start a level you can chose hero class. When you've completed level 1, then level 2 becomes unlocked and available for all hero classes and so on):

Note that Warden has twice as much shield as the others, but he hits less precisely.

I'm close to completing the game - just need to complete the final level, which is a truly amazing level - got me thinking of this quote (admitted, it fits Lone Echo better, but you get the idea):

I really had a blast (pun intended) playing this game last night. It's not that the game isn't repetitive, but it's simply great fun to play - perfect number of enemies, well-chosen enemies and the bosses are awesome.

Doom VFR and Arizona Sunshine are much darker (18+ rated games) and I have to be in a special mood to play those games, while Evasion is much more easy going. Maybe more like Serious Sam, although Evasion is more serious (pun intended - again

New challenges await the Vanguard in Patch 1.03!

The holidays have come early to Evasion, and we're happy to bring some of the highly requested features for the community and new recruits. Last month we addressed those sore trigger fingers by adding some light auto-fire functionality to the player weapons, and we have more in store starting today.

INTRODUCING DIFFICULTY SETTINGS

While we were excited to hear that Evasion was accessible to all skill levels, we know there were some members of the Vanguard that wanted to take on a new challenge, and some players that wanted options that best fit their skill level.

We've got you covered.

BULLET-BREEZEIn the easiest mode the enemy shots deal less damage to the players. This is a pretty forgiving difficulty and is suitable for a brand new player. Some caution is required however, as a reckless player can still be overwhelmed.

BULLET-HECKThis is a fairly challenging fight. Enemy shots are fired with better accuracy and deal full damage. A skilled player will excel.

BULLET-HELLAs the toughest mode, Bullet-Hell requires players to use every ounce of skill they can muster to survive. Enemies lead their shots to hit players that are moving around, and deal extra damage with every hit. Players need to be careful, keep their shields up, and use more cover.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW IN PATCH 1.03

- Added two new achievements to unlock in Bullet-Hell difficulty- Some gameplay improvements to the Megatoma and Skimmer behaviors- Mission tuning to support the new difficulty settings- Some improvements to how enemies react to player tethers- Increased the Engineer damage- Engineer can now do a quick flick and release with the Tether Lash to finish the enemy- Improved the Surgeon self-heal feature when killing an enemy with the Tether Lash- Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented achievement progress from being saved (unfortunately any unsaved progress can not be recovered)- General bug fixing and polishing